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Ijogthroughthewoods until my lungs burn and I have to slow down. I repeat Sigurd’s illicit clues over and over as I search for flowers or any sign of water.
Water. Morning light.
Water. Morning light.
I glance up at the blue sky above. The morning light is basically gone, faded into midday. A roar of distant cheers tickles my ears, and it’s not the first. Others have already found a flower and returned, and yet, the only white things I’ve found are a few oddly shaped mushrooms.
“I’m going to need a miracle,” I mumble into the surrounding forest.
It doesn’t help that the trees here are weird. Spindly ones defy gravity as they spiral up toward the sky. Bulbous ones with violet trunks and golden leaves squat low to the ground. There are some pretty standard-looking oaks too, and I could see pines and firs from the castle. But the odd ones are so distracting that I might have jogged right past a flower without noticing.
“Human,” someone whispers.
The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise. I turn this way and that, searching for its source. A gasp leaps from my throat when I find it.
A woman with pale pink hair peeks around a thick tree. Ears twitch on top of her head, ones like a cat’s. A fae—there’s no doubt of it—but one so unlike the others I’ve seen.
“Who are you?” I step back, heart thundering. “What do you want?”
She steps fully from behind the tree. Her clothing is tight like Moria’s typical outfits but colored in greens and tans, as if to blend into the forest. Hard to do with that hair though. A tail flicks out behind her, like a cat at play. Maybe she has the reflexes of one too. I didn’t hear a peep until she spoke. Not that I was looking for others.
“To help you.” She blinks. “You are the human who was with the air king, are you not? At the ceremony?”
“Yes.” Some of the tension holding my body straight and stiff slips away. “You were there?”
She nods, her whole body participating in the motion like a snake bobbing its head.
“Why help me?” Why would a fae want a human to win?
Her tail flicks again. “Because you can help me.”
I rear back. “How?” How on earth could I help a fae? But memories come on me in an instant, settling hard in my chest. I know how. Sigurd told me. “I can’t stay with you. There’s the competition and…”
I fumble for words as I rub at the hidden mark on my wrist.I don’t want to?
She appears next to me, and I gasp, stepping back. Her feline gaze—good Lord, she even has golden catlike pupils—lands on my wrist.
“I feel…” Clawed fingers hover over my wrist, but she doesn’t touch me. Instead, she pulls them back as quickly as she reached for me. “He bound you? The air king?”
My throat goes dry. How could she know that? But she does. I can see it in the glimmer in her eyes.
“What do you play for, human?” she asks.
“My freedom.”
“You do not love the king who bound you?”
“Love?” I jump back as if the word punched me. My chest aches in response. “No, certainly not. We haven’t even kissed. He trapped me here. How could I—”
I catch myself. Here I’ve gone and spilled all my secrets to this strange woman just because she sets me on edge. And she eats them up, devouring every word in a slowly growing grin.
“You think to remove his bond,” she says. “You believe he won’t rebind you the moment it’s gone?”
In a sentence, she murders my dreams.
The day is suddenly cold. Breath is hard to come by. I never considered, never thought… A whisper of his touch sends a shiver through my body. I remember the warmth of his body next to mine, the way he cared for me in my hangover, and the tingle of his fingers through my hair.
“That’s why you may need my help,” she says, circling around me. “Win this contest. Remove the binding, and I’ll take you away before he can bind you again.”
